Peoples of the earth: ethnonationalism, democracy and the indigenous challenge in ‘Latin’ America

Abstract

Indigenous peoples in Latin America struggle for autonomy because in the twenty-first century, they are still colonies.Francisco Ló pez Bárcenas, Mixtec Indian lawyer (cited on p. 23)Peoples of the Earth is a rich and well documented work that not only covers several dimensions of the problem of incorporation of indigenous peoples, but also follows a clear agenda that aims at intervention and influencing policy design. It is therefore a book that should be read as both an academic piece of work and, perhaps more importantly, as a contribution to the political analysis for the accomplishment of indigenous demands and needs. The author structures his book in three main sections. First, he frames the historical context and the main debates regarding indigenous movements and demands. He emphasises the influence that Marxist thought has had in Latin American Left and indigenous activism. Further, he presents the problematic of ethnonationalism in the context of ungoverned spaces, the wars on drugs, militarism and paramilitarism, and ideas of national security. In the second section of the book, he presents the particularity of the ethnonationalisms of Bolivia, Perú , Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile and Colombia. For each case, he presents a thorough historical, journalistic and anthropological analysis. The last section is an attempt to contrast these Latin American cases with the Inuit in Canada, and with the American model of tribal justice Á suggesting that these have been the most successful examples of modern self-government in which tribal values have informed contemporary legal issues. Andersen proposes that these cases can shed light on the improvement of the indigenous situation throughout the American continent.Andersen analyses how peoples' demands for justice and rights have been successful in achieving transformations in national and international agendas, most importantly with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and the modification of various national constitutions that have declared multicultural and plurinational states. Yet, these agendas have been framed within the context of a neoliberal logic, and historical developments have demonstrated that indigenous rights are still violated: many of the measures taken by states have become empty signifiers and have generated new and more complicated forms of exclusion and domination within the discourse of multiculturalism. He explores the tensions that emerge in the attempts to incorporate indigenous peoples' interests into the logic of diverse nation-states in Latin America; these tensions are the thread that links the various pieces of Andersen's book, the case studies illuminating the question of whether it is possible to incorporate indigenous peoples as full citizens while respecting their rights and diversity. He is hopeful here, and argues that possibilities lie in democracy, while he affirms that 'the search for new and more effective forms of incorporation of indigenous peoples in nation-states is necessarily circums...